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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27329503">A bond once called fealty</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/crackinthecup/pseuds/crackinthecup'>crackinthecup</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The swords have been cast down [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Anal Fingering, Arda Unmarred, Blow Jobs, Depression, Fluff and Angst, Healing, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt, Introspection, M/M, Marriage, Mental Health Issues, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Predestination, Scars, Sibling Bonding, difficult conversations</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 23:00:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,380</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27329503</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/crackinthecup/pseuds/crackinthecup</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>It is as if Melkor can see backwards through time, tracking each subtle change in Mairon, each circumstance and twist of fate that have moulded them into the people standing here today, sharing this moment.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Mairon is not the same person who knelt before his throne all those years ago and vowed to serve him. Melkor is not the same person who accepted that vow.</em>
</p>
<p>Melkor and Mairon have built a new life for themselves in Arda Unmarred. It is a life of peace, a life where they can be together without any wars to fight or empires to rule. But peace does not always equal happiness, and as the months wear on, Melkor comes to understand that some of Mairon’s wounds need more than just time to heal.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Morgoth Bauglir | Melkor/Sauron | Mairon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The swords have been cast down [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947577</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>91</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A bond once called fealty</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is pretty much a direct sequel to my one-shot <em><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24074413">Strange New World</a></em>, but I’ve decided to publish it as a standalone rather than adding it as a second chapter because it’s got a different POV character and deals with slightly different themes. There are some bits that will probably make a lot more sense if you’ve read <em>Strange New World</em> first, but it’s by no means necessary!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The forge is small, far smaller than the space Mairon had at his disposal in Utumno and then later in Angband. But Mairon seems happy enough with it, his small forge in the middle of nowhere in this new world; so Melkor doesn’t comment on it.</p>
<p>It is the way things go in their life, now, this life they’ve built for themselves since Melkor’s return many months ago; Mairon says or does something, or doesn’t as the case may be, and Melkor lets it happen without protest, accepts it and accepts him and accepts the million infuriating or perplexing things about him, both old and new.</p>
<p>It was slow, at first, finding the footing of their relationship. It was slow, and it took effort, in the way that growing a mountain-top garden takes effort.</p>
<p>But they are both here, now, and they are together, and as Melkor watches Mairon work, taking hammer to metal with effortless precision, he thinks that this is what peace feels like.</p>
<p>There is a moment, a brief one, when Mairon stands limned in the red glow of the furnace behind him, and Melkor has the dizzying feeling that this is not Arda Unmarred but Beleriand: their land, torn by war, their war, the war that he had brought and Mairon had directed.</p>
<p>But then Mairon moves away, the strike of his hammer ringing out too loudly in the small room, and the moment is gone. There are no wars here. Nothing to kill for; nothing to die for.</p>
<p>Melkor doesn’t mind.</p>
<p>Mairon is speaking, half to himself and half to Melkor, keeping up a steady stream of chatter about what he’s doing: the malleability of the metal, the best temperature points for tempering it, how to polish a piece to achieve a glistening finish.</p>
<p>In truth, Melkor only has a passing knowledge of metallurgy—he has never had the patience for smithcraft, not with all of its seemingly endless rules and the long wait to see the finished product of one’s labours. But Mairon chooses to share this with him, and so Melkor chooses to listen. There are a great many things he would choose to do if only they would make Mairon happy.</p>
<p>After a while Mairon sets down the circlet he has been working on.</p>
<p>“It is done,” he says, drawing Melkor from his thoughts.</p>
<p>The circlet is resting upon Mairon’s workbench, gleaming jet-black in the firelight. It is a beautiful thing, expertly made, all sharp edges and exquisite details. The blades of metal twist and coil to form the shape of an eye at the front of the circlet, and the sight jogs Melkor’s memory.</p>
<p>“I have seen this before,” he says, picking it up almost reverently. “You used to wear a circlet very much like this one in Angband.”</p>
<p>Mairon is staring at it as though he is seeing it for the first time. “So I did,” he murmurs, voice faint and distant like an echo from some barely remembered dream.</p>
<p>Melkor steps closer until he is only inches away from Mairon; he could take him into his arms, if he wanted to. The moment moves him, this little slice of time that seems torn from a world that is no more, an era of glory and bloodshed and such golden, dazzling purpose. Slowly, solemnly, he lifts the circlet and fits it upon Mairon’s brow.</p>
<p>“You are a vision,” he tells Mairon; his voice is soft, his heart softer still as he looks into Mairon’s eyes alight with some unnamed emotion. “You could command armies with nothing but a flick of the wrist. Your subjects would build monuments in your name.”</p>
<p>Something breaks across Mairon’s face at Melkor’s words, something like fear. The moment shatters; Mairon hurriedly takes the circlet off, throwing it away from him as though it burned his fingers. It skids across the workbench to clatter onto the floor.</p>
<p>“That time is dead,” he says and his voice is hollow, his eyes are hollow; he doesn’t look at Melkor as he strips off his leather gloves, rolling up his sleeves with fingers that no longer bear the rings he used to be so fond of.</p>
<p>Melkor catches sight of the scars knotted along his forearms, thick and gnarled, stretching from wrist to inner elbow; despite the heat of the forge, a coldness pierces his heart.</p>
<p>He has seen the scars many times over the months since he joined Mairon in Arda Unmarred. He has laid gentle fingers on them, pressed his lips to them in moments of passion. They are part of Mairon, now, as much as his stubbornness or his ability to do the same thing a hundred times over if only that hundredth time promises to be perfect.</p>
<p>But still, the sight of them seems to settle beneath Melkor’s skin like shards of glass.</p>
<p>“That time is dead, yes,” he replies carefully. Of their own accord, his eyes drift back to Mairon’s scars. He knows he shouldn’t broach the matter, knows that Mairon doesn’t like to talk about his scars or that fateful day when he took a blade to his own skin; but he is powerless to stop the words that rise to his lips: “Do you still wish you were dead?”</p>
<p>The question drops between them like a boulder. Mairon starts tracing the edge of his anvil, over and over again, not seeming to realise what he’s doing.</p>
<p>He is silent for a long time, but when he finally speaks, he sounds as collected as he’s ever been. “You have to admit it would be easier if I were dead, both for me and for you.”</p>
<p>Melkor’s heart is in his throat; he can hardly hear himself over its rhythmic <em>thump-thump-thump</em>, too loud in his ears. “I would never wish for your death.”</p>
<p>“No?” Mairon asks, smiling, and his smile chills Melkor to the bone. “You deserve so much more than this half-life, hidden away in a cottage in some forsaken corner of the world. If I were dead you would be free.”</p>
<p>“Mairon,” Melkor snaps, sudden anger surging up inside of him, and Mairon’s smile widens to meet it. “I am not shackled to you against my will, nor to our life in this new world. I chose to be here.”</p>
<p>“You chose wrong.”</p>
<p>Melkor instinctively takes a step forward, arm outstretched to grab Mairon and yank him close. Volcanic rage burns in his chest and it would be so easy to let it consume him, to hit Mairon across the face and tell him that he’s being ridiculous, that he’s being <em>unfair</em>, because <em>how</em> could he possibly think that Melkor would want him dead after everything they’ve been through for each other?</p>
<p>The look on Mairon’s face stops him in his tracks. He expects fear, wants it, even, wants to see that he’s having as much of an effect on Mairon as Mairon is having on him. But there isn’t any fear there; there is only emptiness behind Mairon’s cold composure, emptiness as dark and deep as the Void.</p>
<p>Melkor lets his arm drop back down to his side. “That may be your opinion, but I do not share it,” he says as gently as he can. “I chose you, Mairon, and it’s the choice I would make a hundred times over. You are mine.”</p>
<p>“What does that mean?”</p>
<p>“Does it need to mean anything? Isn’t it enough that it simply is?”</p>
<p>Mairon pauses for so long that Melkor starts to wonder whether he has heard him at all. “I was your lieutenant,” he says at last, voice barely audible over the crackling of the fire, “you were my lord. That was the order of things, the framework of our lives. It made sense and gave us purpose where purpose was needed. Assume you’re making a sword, for example; you would treat the metal differently than if you were making a delicate necklace, and you have to know that before you pick up your hammer. So too with us.” He draws a thumb over his inner forearm, over the scar tissue knotted there, as if he were trying to rub away a smudge of dirt. “But now we are adrift in this new world. I loved Arda before I knew what love meant. I watched as it was made, I shaped its soils and ores and gemstones according to my thought, and I loved what it became. But this new world is a stranger to me, and what we are in it is a question I cannot answer.” He looks up, then, and the light in his eyes is sickly. “Why are you here, Melkor? I can’t be what you want me to be.”</p>
<p>“And what do you think that I want you to be?”</p>
<p>“Not this!” Mairon gestures at himself, disgust contorting his features. “Anything but this! Lieutenant I cannot be. I lost all right to that title long ago. Even if I wished it otherwise, and I do, believe me, there is no place in this world for lords and lieutenants. What else is left?”</p>
<p>“You,” Melkor answers instantly, voice rising urgently as if by volume alone he could convince Mairon of the truth of his words. “You are left, the beautiful brightness of you—”</p>
<p>“And what could I possibly do for you with that?”</p>
<p>“You don’t need to <em>do</em> anything. You just need to be, Mairon, just live, and laugh—”</p>
<p>Mairon does laugh, and it is humourless. “I broke, Melkor. In N<em>ú</em>menor when the waves came, and the water rushed into my lungs, and my bones snapped under falling stones. And in Mordor too, when my tower crumbled and I felt the death of my Ring as though someone had sliced me open with a hundred blades. I broke and each time I lost a little bit more of myself, and if I were to mention all the other times when I <em>wanted</em> to break, when my crown felt too heavy and my duty tasted like ashes in my mouth, we’d have to stand here till dawn.” He sighs, walking around the workbench to pick up the circlet off the floor; with a blank expression on his face, he casts it into the forge-fire. “There’s nothing left in me that could be of any use to you.”</p>
<p>“Have you heard anything I said to you?” Melkor asks, perhaps more roughly than he intended, but he is angry and hurt and scared, so scared that he will wake up one day and Mairon will be gone, completely, irrevocably <em>gone</em> as if his presence in Melkor’s life was nothing but a fever-dream. “Do you really think I came here because I wanted to use you for something? Mairon, I—” He breaks off, viciously blinking away the sudden prickle behind his eyes; <em>you have no idea what I gave up for you</em>, he thinks but doesn’t say. “I am here because I love you and I will stay because I love you and I will repeat myself till it gets through that incredibly thick skull of yours.”</p>
<p>And just like that, it’s over: Mairon visibly sags, reaching out a hand to steady himself against the workbench.</p>
<p>“Don’t patronise me,” he retorts, without much feeling.</p>
<p>Melkor closes his eyes and doesn’t open them again until the urge to grab Mairon and shake him has passed. It has always been like this with Mairon: he closes his heart to everyone who asks, tucking his emotions away, out of sight, until they burst out of him like a torrent through a broken dam; and then, in the aftermath, he turns his back on it all, pretending that it never happened.</p>
<p>Melkor rubs at his temples, feeling the beginnings of a headache pounding through his skull. “Sometimes you need to be patronised,” he says, trying and failing to remember the last time he felt this tired.</p>
<p>Mairon makes a dismissive noise in the back of his throat. “Help me clean up, will you?” he asks, bordering on rudeness, and Melkor can’t help but think back to a time when Mairon would not have dared to speak to him like this.</p>
<p>He would be lying if he said he did not miss the majesty of those days, the utter surety that came from sinking his fingers into the soil of Arda and feeling his own power beating like a huge, steady heart in the core of the earth.</p>
<p><em>You have no idea what I gave up for you</em>, he thinks again as he watches Mairon putting his tools away in sullen silence. He pictures the Flame Imperishable, the world he could have created with it, his own perfect world where he could have reigned untroubled for the rest of eternity with Ilúvatar’s blessing. He thinks of that world, his lifelong dream of it in all of its hatred and all of its fierceness, and he thinks of how he abandoned it to return to Mairon’s side.</p>
<p>He doesn’t regret it.</p>
<p>It was done willingly, and it was done justly, and Melkor knows in his heart that nothing Mairon could ever say or do would make him change his mind.</p>
<p>So here he is, picking up a pail of water to extinguish the forge-fire simply because Mairon told him to. And as the water hits the coals, he stares into the dying embers and the warped remnants of Mairon’s circlet, and then into the steam rising wispy and shadowy as the flames are quenched, and it is as if he can see backwards through time, tracking each subtle change in Mairon, each circumstance and twist of fate that have moulded them into the people standing here today, sharing this moment.</p>
<p>Mairon is not the same person who knelt before his throne all those years ago and vowed to serve him. Melkor is not the same person who accepted that vow.</p>
<p>Melkor wonders what this means for them; what name they can now give to the bond between them, a bond once called fealty that even back then overspilled its bounds. He doesn’t need to define it, not for himself; he never has. Mairon is his, has always been his, and that is all the truth he needs.  </p>
<p>But as they leave the forge side by side, as he twines his fingers through Mairon’s own and Mairon can’t quite stop himself from flinching, Melkor thinks of love and loyalty, of fear, of forgiveness; most of all, he thinks of definitions.</p>
<p>Outside, night has fallen. They eat, and they talk, and they fall into bed together like clockwork. They fuck, as they often do, not like lovers long sundered but like beasts: fast and brutal. Mairon asks him to make it hurt and Melkor does. It is easy, too easy perhaps, to pin Mairon down and fuck him raw, but Melkor was once a god and every instinct in him is still primed to violence.</p>
<p>He is not a god, now, of course—he has been brought low, inconsequential amid the cogs that keep the world turning—but he doesn’t dwell on it much. He is here for Mairon, fully, as he never was in their old life.</p>
<p>Afterwards, Mairon curls up into his chest and sobs, and Melkor wordlessly holds him until his tears run dry. He would carve Mairon open and take this squirming, squalling hurt away from him with his bare hands, if he could. But he cannot. So he holds him through the long hours, he pulls him close in the darkness and does not let go until Mairon is fast asleep.</p>
<p>It is the least he can do: being here, in the moment, every moment.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>That night Mairon wakes up screaming. The sound rouses Melkor from his sleep, and he groggily sits up in bed and places both hands on Mairon’s shoulders. He can feel Mairon shaking with each breath that he takes.</p>
<p>“Sorry for waking you,” Mairon says in a faint voice, and Melkor feels his heart tumble. If he never hears another apology from Mairon’s lips, it won’t be soon enough.</p>
<p>“Don’t apologise,” he tells him; and then, because Mairon is still shaking, he adds, “Bad dream?”</p>
<p>“Something like that.”</p>
<p>“Do you want to talk about it?”</p>
<p>This is a new thing that Melkor does. Asking instead of commanding. He’s learned not to push Mairon, not in moments like this when he is brittle, stretched too thin.</p>
<p>Mairon shakes his head <em>no</em>. Melkor sighs, barely audible. There is a heaviness in his chest that he doesn’t know what to do with, a sorrow that must remain unvoiced. But suddenly an idea forms in his mind.</p>
<p>He guides Mairon backwards until he is lying against the pillows, then presses himself close, skin to skin, moulding himself to the shape of him. They are still naked from earlier that night. Melkor tucks his head against Mairon’s shoulder, laying a hand on his stomach, feeling the rise and fall of it with his every breath.</p>
<p>“What are you doing?” Mairon asks him.</p>
<p>Melkor smiles against his collarbone. “Tell me how this feels.” He emphasises his words by sliding his hand down, slowly, coming to rest just above Mairon’s hips.</p>
<p>“What do you mean?”</p>
<p>“Me, touching you,” Melkor explains. “Describe to me how it feels.”</p>
<p>“I don’t see why—”</p>
<p>“<em>Mairon</em>,” Melkor breathes, low and honeyed, and next to him Mairon shivers. “Let me help you.”</p>
<p>Melkor knows little of the mind, except how to break it. But he understands bodies, the rhythm and flux of them, the clockwork intricacy of their inner workings. He understands <em>sensation</em>, pleasure and pain and everything in between, and he understands how to use sensation to mould people to his will, to make them feel what he wants them to feel.</p>
<p>Most of all, he understands <em>Mairon</em>.</p>
<p>His fingers trail lower, light over Mairon’s thigh, and pressed so close to him, Melkor can feel his breathing quicken.</p>
<p>“This feels… it feels nice,” Mairon ventures.</p>
<p>“Go on.”</p>
<p>“Your skin feels cool against mine, and soft, and—” Mairon breaks off, reaching downwards to wrap his fingers around Melkor’s wrist; not stopping his movements, just seeming to drink in the feel of him. “Your hand is healed,” he says eventually, almost to himself.</p>
<p>“Yes,” Melkor replies simply. His skin is smooth and unblemished, like it has never been tainted by the holy fire of the Silmarils.</p>
<p>Mairon hums softly. “I hadn’t noticed.”</p>
<p>“Do you like it?”</p>
<p>Surprisingly, Mairon shrugs. “The particulars of your physical form have never been important to me.”</p>
<p>“It can’t have been very pleasant for you when I touched you with my burned hand.”</p>
<p>Mairon shrugs again. He draws his thumb over the inside of Melkor’s wrist in a gentle caress. “You were touching me. That was all that mattered.”</p>
<p>Melkor does not know what to say to that. There is a warm glow in his chest, and it sparks a need to grab Mairon and enter him, make them one, make him <em>his</em> in the most complete sense of the word. He does not. He merely tilts his face upwards, pressing his lips to the side of Mairon’s neck just beneath his ear.</p>
<p>His hand wanders inwards. Mairon’s thighs part for him until he can brush his fingers over his entrance, still loose and slick from their earlier coupling. He dips a finger in, teasing the outer rim of muscles, and Mairon gasps loudly in the silence of their bedroom.</p>
<p>“How does this feel?” Melkor presses, not bothering to disguise the rough edge in his voice.</p>
<p>When Mairon does not immediately reply, Melkor twists a second finger in to join the first.</p>
<p>“It—<em>ah</em>—it burns,” Mairon says, his own voice low and ragged, but despite his words he presses himself <em>into</em> the touch. “No, wait, it… it doesn’t burn, not per se; there’s an ache, and a throb, and I—”</p>
<p>Melkor’s fingers sink in deeper. He curls them just so, and Mairon’s speech breaks off into a curse, one hand coming up to tangle in Melkor’s hair.</p>
<p>“How about now?” Melkor prompts, setting a languid rhythm against Mairon’s prostate.</p>
<p>“Damn you,” Mairon whispers, hips bucking of their own accord. “Just—”</p>
<p>“Tell me.”</p>
<p>“I feel so <em>hot</em>, like there’s a fire under my skin, and it’s spreading everywhere and—<em>fuck</em>—”</p>
<p>Melkor presses down hard against Mairon’s inner walls, and he feels him clench around him, feels him shudder next to him.</p>
<p>“This is torment,” Mairon complains, and Melkor cannot help but smile at the pout in his voice.</p>
<p>“So ungrateful, little one,” Melkor teases, still smiling against Mairon’s skin. “You’re not thinking of your nightmare anymore, are you?”</p>
<p>There is a pause, filled with the ragged fall of Mairon’s breaths and the slick sounds of Melkor’s ministrations between his thighs.</p>
<p>“I am not,” Mairon answers eventually. His hand in Melkor’s hair loosens, sliding down to caress over his shoulders.</p>
<p>“Then that is good.”</p>
<p>Melkor pushes himself up and down, coming to rest between Mairon’s parted legs. He lets his lips brush over Mairon’s length, which lies hard and flushed against his abdomen. The touch draws a moan from Mairon’s lips, a desperate sound from deep within his chest, and Melkor has to close his eyes for a second and simply breathe, to bring his own arousal back in check.</p>
<p>Then Melkor opens his mouth, drawing the tip of Mairon’s length between his lips, and there is no more talk of nightmares or otherwise for a long time.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>“I want to marry him.” Melkor’s words break the carefully placid silence between him and his brother.</p>
<p>Above them the sky is a cloudless blue; around them grass extends to the edges of the pinnacle upon which they sit, one of Manwë’s favourite haunts in this new world where he does not have to fight to keep the peace. It is cold, and the wind blows colder still, but neither of them minds.</p>
<p>Manwë turns to look at Melkor, a look of unguarded surprise on his face. “I thought you were already married.”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“Forgive me,” Manwë amends, dipping his head as he schools his features into a neutral expression, “the bond between you is so strong that I assumed… I should not have.”</p>
<p>Melkor waves the apology away. “We never married. There was little time for sentimentality in the midst of warfare.”</p>
<p>Manwë murmurs something under this breath that sounds suspiciously like <em>whose fault might that be?</em> But then he shakes his head, looking at Melkor with eyes of a piercing blue so eerily like his own, and his voice is full of warmth as he says, “I think it would be wonderful.”</p>
<p>“How is it done?”</p>
<p>“Ah. You’ve never been to a wedding before.”</p>
<p>It is not a question, but Melkor responds nonetheless: “No.”</p>
<p>“You do not need much,” Manwë tells him, “just the two of you speaking a vow of your own choosing. You may have guests, of course, but…”</p>
<p>There are few on this earth who would want to attend such an event. Melkor nods impatiently. It matters little to him—it wouldn’t feel right to have anyone there besides the two of them. No one knows them as they are now, no longer gods or rulers or even lords, but two beings trying to piece each other back together.</p>
<p>“I want to give him a ring,” Melkor says suddenly, deciding on the fact right then and there. At that Manwë gives him a sharp look, but Melkor merely laughs. “Do not fret, brother. The ring would bear no power for good or evil. It would be a token, nothing more. I do not think I could create anything else with what is left of my power, at any rate.”</p>
<p>Manwë offers no reply, and Melkor finds himself continuing unprompted, “It used to bring him joy to wear his rings.” His voice is quiet, and the wind whips his hair about his face, and Melkor has the sudden sensation that he is the only being in the whole world. “I hope a wedding band might rekindle that joy. There aren’t many things that make him happy these days.”</p>
<p>The look on Manwë’s face would be inscrutable to anyone else save perhaps Varda, but Melkor knows it well; he has seen it in the mirror often enough. It is sorrow not allowed to rise to the surface.</p>
<p>“I did not think the solitude would break him,” Manwë says softly, and Melkor hears the unspoken apology behind his words: <em>I never meant to do this to him</em>.</p>
<p>A moment passes and then another, silent but for the whistle of the wind. Melkor wants to be angry, he wants to blame his brother for everything that’s happened to Mairon since their defeat in the battle of all battles that brought Arda to its knees; but he can’t. “He was broken long before the creation of this world,” he says instead, and wonders at himself. “I was not always kind to him, and he was not kind to himself either.”</p>
<p>A rueful smile spills over Manwë’s lips. “Such things take their toll.”</p>
<p>Melkor hums low in his throat, then falls silent. The conversation has come to an end as far as he is concerned; even though his brother has become remarkably easy to talk to over the past months, he wants this moment for himself, to consider, to reflect.</p>
<p>Manwë, however, has other ideas.</p>
<p>“I did not expect you to come back,” he continues, almost too quietly for Melkor to hear before his voice is snatched away by the wind.</p>
<p>“I live to surprise you, brother.”</p>
<p>Manwë shakes his head. “I thought you selfish. I thought you cruel. When Ilúvatar told me of the choice He had offered you, I was convinced you had chosen the creation of a new world, your own world. That is what you have always wanted, is it not?”</p>
<p>Manwë’s words make sudden nausea churn in Melkor’s stomach. “It is—it was, at least. But my heart would not bear any other choice than the one I made.”</p>
<p>“You love him.”</p>
<p>Melkor meets his brother’s questioning gaze. “I do.”</p>
<p>“Have you always loved him?”</p>
<p>Melkor arches an eyebrow, a silent warning that Manwë is delving too deeply into these intimate matters; but he replies nonetheless, and he replies truthfully: “Yes, and no. I gave him my love, or something that I thought was my love, but what you have to understand is that those days were spent in hate and hate corrodes everything that it touches. He deserved so much more than what I gave him.”</p>
<p>Manwë nods as if he has just learned the deepest secrets of the universe. “I am glad that he stayed by your side, to show you another way.”</p>
<p>“There was no other way for us.”</p>
<p>“There is always another way,” Manwë counters, and an edge creeps into his voice; but it is gone almost as soon as it appeared, and Manwë softens, leaning back to cast his eyes to the skies above. “Though perhaps that is a lesson we both need to learn. Your love for each other has paved the way for this new world as much as the clash of our armies on the battlefield.”</p>
<p>“And evil yet be good to have been,” Melkor murmurs, half to himself.</p>
<p>Manwë does not turn to look at him, but there is a smile on his face. “When do you plan to be married?”</p>
<p>“Soon,” Melkor replies, still speaking like one in a daze. “I have yet to ask Mairon.”</p>
<p>“Well, let me know when you know.” Manwë’s face brightens as though the sun has perched herself right beside him. “I can help you get him out of the house while you craft the rings, if you like.”</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>The moon rides high in the cloudless night, dappling the land in silver. It reflects in blinding flashes of light off the dull blades that Melkor and Mairon are using to spar. It was Mairon’s idea, heading outside in the dead of night to cross swords, an idea which Melkor sleepily dismissed until Mairon poked him in the ribs and repeated himself. The prospect of leaving the warmth of his bed didn’t much appeal to Melkor, but there was a nervous energy to Mairon, a sharpness that spoke of a hurt he didn’t want to talk about; so Melkor acquiesced.</p>
<p>A ringing blow glances off Melkor’s sword as he parries Mairon. There is a strange tension between them, almost palpable as Mairon falls back with a curse, as Melkor stalks forward to press home his advantage. Mairon is careless, too careless, acquiring a new scrape or bruise each time he throws himself into Melkor’s blows. It’s making Melkor’s heart beat that little bit too loudly in his ears. He is wrestling with the question he wants to ask, has been turning the words over and over in his mind ever since his conversation with his brother several weeks ago. It would be a step into the unknown, one vow exchanged for another, a new framework for defining the beating heart of this thing between them. He hopes he has not misjudged how open Mairon would be to the suggestion.</p>
<p>He does not know why the words choose this moment to spring to his lips. Perhaps it is the way the moonlight falls on Mairon’s features, making him seem paler than normal, indistinct, a lonely ghost in these wide lands. Or perhaps it is the way Mairon drops his sword after a strike to his wrist, looking like he would much rather tackle Melkor with his bare hands than concede defeat.</p>
<p>Either way, the words are out before Melkor has a chance to stop them: “Will you marry me?”</p>
<p>The silence that follows is deafening. Mairon is standing still, a being of shadow and moonlight, regarding Melkor with an unreadable expression on his face.</p>
<p>But then he smiles, and it is sad and beautiful all at once.</p>
<p>“You don’t need to do this for my benefit,” he says with a gentle shake of the head. There is a wistful air about him, and Melkor cannot help feeling that he is slipping away, backwards in time, a spectre returning to haunt a world that is no more.</p>
<p>“I’m not,” Melkor says quickly, his throat closing up as Mairon visibly softens; it is something in the eyes, Melkor thinks with a pang of longing, the warm glow in them that is so rare these days.</p>
<p>“It’s okay, Melkor,” Mairon says softly, knowingly. “I’m okay.”</p>
<p>It is Melkor’s turn to shake his head. “This isn’t about being okay. You deserve to be happy, little one.”</p>
<p>Mairon isn’t looking at him anymore. His eyes are fixed on the ground, as if he can see through the grass and soil down to the core of the earth.</p>
<p>“I don’t know if I can,” he replies in a voice that nearly breaks.</p>
<p>Melkor lets his sword fall to the ground. In a few steps he comes to stand in front of Mairon, and then, because Mairon is still not looking up, he drops to one knee before him.</p>
<p>“I would give you the world, if I could,” Melkor tells him and he thinks he’s never meant anything as much as this.</p>
<p>Mairon doesn’t seem to have heard him. “There was so much loss,” he whispers. “So much death, so much <em>failure</em>.”</p>
<p>“It doesn’t matter.”</p>
<p>“It <em>does</em>.” Mairon gestures helplessly. “You trusted me.”</p>
<p>Melkor takes his hand, rubs his thumb over his knuckles to bring some warmth to his skin. “Listen to me carefully, please,” he begins and Mairon finally meets his gaze. “I don’t care how many battles you lost or how many of your plans failed or how many times you died. I might have been angry, once. I might have been disappointed. But that was then and this is now. You are no longer my lieutenant. I am no longer a lord. Defeats and victories are meaningless when the soil upon which we stand has never known the taste of blood.”</p>
<p>“But we would not have to stand here, diminished and exiled, if we had won. If I had secured our victory.”</p>
<p>Melkor holds his hand that little bit more tightly. His voice is gentle when he says, “I don’t think that was ever a possibility.”</p>
<p>“What do you mean?”</p>
<p>“The fate of Arda was constrained by the bounds of the Music, and neither by my hand nor yours could those bounds have been altered.” As shock breaks over Mairon’s face, Melkor continues, “Ilúvatar revealed as much to me. We were never meant to win, Mairon. Our fate was not our own.”</p>
<p>Mairon listens to Melkor’s words in silence, and does not say anything for a long time afterwards. It feels like hours, but Melkor is content to wait; he needed years in the Timeless Halls with Ilúvatar to wrap his head around the workings of the world.</p>
<p>At length Mairon stirs, giving Melkor’s fingers a little squeeze. “Was there anything either of us could have done?”</p>
<p>“No, my love.”</p>
<p>With a shaky sigh, Mairon lowers himself to his knees, matching Melkor’s position. He seems so small, kneeling there in the grass, his shoulders slumped and shaking with what Melkor assumes to be tears. But no, he realises a second later, Mairon is not crying at all; he’s laughing, at first silently but then out loud, chasing away the silence of the night.</p>
<p>“I hardly know what to say,” Mairon begins once his laughter has died down. “I spent millennia thinking that I could leave my mark on the world, that I could take it in your name and make something good out of it. I waged war just so I could drive my banner into the soil from East to West and bring order and industry to lands that no one else seemed to care about.” He lets out a slow breath. “I think I waged war for so long that in the absence of enemies I started to wage it on myself. I’m sorry you found me like this.”</p>
<p>“Don’t apologise,” Melkor tells him in an echo of the other night. “You do not owe me any apologies.” He cups Mairon’s face in his hands, gently, holding him as if he were the most precious creature to ever walk the earth. “You gave all of yourself to me as my lieutenant, but our empire is now gone, and our world gone with it. Will you allow me to do the same for you as your husband in this new world?”</p>
<p>Mairon smiles then, and it is like a living flame, warm and bright, and Melkor finds himself holding his breath.</p>
<p>“I will.”</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>It will not be a wedding in the proper sense of the word. Neither of them wants something grand.</p>
<p>They wait for an evening when the air is cool and soft and the moon is veiled behind a wrack of clouds in the East.</p>
<p>“Shall we do it?” Melkor asks, and, giddily, Mairon says yes.</p>
<p>The darkness is beautiful and complete. There are stars in this world just as there were in the old one, but tonight they are dim and distant: perhaps a trick of the clouds, or a gesture of goodwill from Varda.</p>
<p>Melkor looks up at the sky, wonders if Ilúvatar is watching, then decides that it does not matter.</p>
<p>“You know, I wanted to ask you to marry me before,” he tells Mairon, and even though he is still looking at the sky, he feels Mairon turn to stare at him.</p>
<p>“When?”</p>
<p>“Utumno. You had been my lieutenant for countless years, and you had served me well. I wanted you to be more.”</p>
<p>Mairon touches his arm, and Melkor breaks away from his contemplation of the darkness spreading out endless and lovely above them.</p>
<p>“Why didn’t you?” Mairon asks, and there is a touch of wonder in his voice, a light in his face that is half joy and half disbelief.</p>
<p>Melkor shrugs, staring at him rather helplessly. They have not dressed up, they have not marked the occasion in any way, but stood next to him now Mairon is a vision of a time when life was young: he seems to glow like magma in the core of the earth, a radiance that strikes the heart and leaves one speechless like the brightness of the Flame Imperishable.</p>
<p><em>How funny</em>, Melkor thinks, <em>all my life I sought the Flame when I already had Mairon at my side</em>.</p>
<p>“I liked being your lord,” he answers truthfully.</p>
<p>“That would not have changed.”</p>
<p>“I’m not so sure about that,” Melkor replies; and then, when Mairon seems lost in some secret thought, he adds, “Would you have accepted me?”</p>
<p>“I think so,” Mairon says, “though perhaps I would have felt that it was not my place.”</p>
<p>“You’ve always been more than a servant to me.”</p>
<p>Mairon lets out a soft hum. His fingers slip down to twine through Melkor’s own. “How do we begin?” he asks, changing the subject.</p>
<p>“We say our vows and we exchange rings.”</p>
<p>“Rings?”</p>
<p>Melkor can’t help but laugh at the look of alarm on Mairon’s face. “I have them right here.”</p>
<p>Melkor untangles his fingers from Mairon’s own and withdraws the rings from a pocket of his trousers: two unadorned bands of glimmering gold. He hands one of them to Mairon, the one he intends for himself, and watches as Mairon carefully plucks it between his fingers and turns it this way and that.</p>
<p>“I do not have your skill in the forge, but I think they turned out well enough.”</p>
<p>For several long moments Mairon remains speechless, and worry twists in Melkor’s gut. Perhaps he should have let Mairon forge the rings after all. He is no smith, and though he can shape metal to his will through Song like he did once before when he forged the iron crown for himself, Mairon might pick up on flaws that were invisible to his own untrained eye.</p>
<p>But then Mairon meets his gaze, and his eyes are very bright. “It is exquisite,” he murmurs, and at the thickness in his voice Melkor turns his face away, awkwardly rubbing at the nape of his neck until the swell of emotion in his chest begins to ebb.</p>
<p>“I feared I would not finish them before you returned from your walk with my brother.”</p>
<p>Mairon frowns up at him in confusion, which quickly gives way to outrage as Melkor’s words sink in. He smacks Melkor’s arm, none too gently. “Manwë knew?”</p>
<p>Melkor grins at him. “I needed to get you out of the house.”</p>
<p>“And you decided to send me away <em>with your brother</em>? I’ve never had a more awkward conversation in my life. Honestly, Melkor, you could’ve just told me.”</p>
<p>“And spoil the surprise?”</p>
<p>Mairon shakes his head, fond and exasperated. “Let’s do this before I change my mind.”</p>
<p>Melkor does not reply; he does not need to. He merely smiles, because he knows Mairon down to the smallest atoms of his being, and he knows that a change of mind is not and has never been a possibility.</p>
<p>Instead, he turns to face Mairon, holding his gaze as he begins to speak, “I’ve thought a lot about what I would like to say to you in this moment. Do you remember the day when you pledged yourself to me? You came in secret to my hall, upset by something Aulë had said to you, and you poured your heart out to me. I will never forget how you stood there trembling and aglow, and how the beautiful, burning flame of you mingled with my darkness and made the shadows deeper still.”</p>
<p>Melkor breaks off, eyes flickering over Mairon’s face. He takes his hand, slowly sliding the ring onto his finger, a flash of gold against his pale skin. “I thought of that day while I was in the Timeless Halls; I thought of it when Ilúvatar asked me to make my choice. You know that I chose to be here with you, but do you know what the alternative was? The power to create my own world.” Mairon draws in a sharp breath, but Melkor doesn’t stop talking, he doesn’t think he could stop talking even if he wanted to. “Yes, a world made according to my own thought, in the shape of my own Song, untouched by any other power. It was everything I thought I wanted, but I refused, and the reason why I refused is that it wouldn’t have meant anything at all without you by my side.” Melkor lifts Mairon’s hand to his lips, pressing a lingering kiss to his knuckles. “I’m yours, Mairon.”</p>
<p>Mairon bites his lip, glancing down at the ring on his finger. He has never shown his emotions plainly on his face and tonight is no different; but Melkor knows him well enough to see the softness in his eyes, and it is enough.</p>
<p>Slowly, as if trying to commit every last second of this moment to memory, Mairon takes Melkor’s hand in his and places the matching band of gold on his finger.</p>
<p>“I have also thought a great deal about what to say to you,” he begins, his voice quiet, almost solemn, and Melkor cannot help the shiver that runs down his spine. “You were beautiful when I first saw you, and you remained beautiful throughout all the ages of the world, and now you are perhaps more beautiful than you have ever been. I was in awe of you, your power, the majesty of your purpose; I wanted to serve you as I had never wanted anything else since my creation. I grew to love you, or perhaps I had always loved you. It is difficult to tell, sometimes, difficult to see where duty ended and love began.”</p>
<p>A smile plucks at the corners of Mairon’s lips. He clasps Melkor’s hand in both of his, looking at the ring with such tenderness that Melkor’s breath stops in his lungs. “You were everything to me. I don’t think you ever saw it, back then.” When Melkor tries to speak, he shushes him with a quick kiss, and, childishly, Melkor wants to point out that they are meant to kiss at the end; but he contents himself to simply listen. “I cannot blame you; I understand why, I understand your pain and your hatred. If I could have taken them from you, I would have.”</p>
<p>Mairon’s eyes lock with Melkor’s own, and the gold in them is incandescent. “Forgive me —this isn’t what a marriage vow is meant to be like, is it?” He gently shakes his head, laughing at himself. “My pledge to you all those years ago was that I would always be at your side. That oath still stands, as far as I’m concerned, so I can only renew it: I am here with you and for you, as I have always been.”</p>
<p>Melkor thinks that the air has been sucked out of the entire world. He pulls Mairon close and their lips meet again in a passionate kiss, there beneath the open skies with no one but the dark as witness.</p>
<p>After what feels like an eternity, the kiss ends. For a moment there is silence, perfect and unbroken; Melkor thinks of the vastness beyond the stars, of the intake of breath before the Song of creation.</p>
<p>The sound of laughter breaks that unutterable silence, Mairon’s laughter, soft and helpless. It takes a long while to subside, and when it does, Mairon tips his head back, cheeks flushed and hair set fluttering about his shoulders by a breath of wind. Melkor stares at him, transfixed and unashamed of it.</p>
<p>“Everything feels so peaceful tonight,” Mairon whispers at length. “I wish we could stay out here forever.”</p>
<p>“We can—we are free to do anything we want.”</p>
<p>“Not anything.”</p>
<p>Melkor slips his fingers into Mairon’s hair, cups the back of his skull as he has so many times before. He tilts his head forward, breaking his contemplation of the skies to look him in the eye.</p>
<p>“If you could do anything right now, anything at all, what would it be?” Melkor asks.</p>
<p>Mairon looks away, glancing sideways across the miles of grass seeming soft and shadowy on that starless night.</p>
<p>“You know, I’m not sure.” He laughs again, lazily winding his arms about Melkor’s shoulders. “My first thought was that I’d like to fight again, take back what’s ours, rebuild what we’ve lost. But then I realised that I rather enjoy having you all to myself. Ruling an empire comes with so many responsibilities.”</p>
<p>“Too many,” Melkor agrees. “It affords little time for rest, and even less for happiness.”</p>
<p>“I was happy.”</p>
<p>“It may seem so now, with the benefit of distance and hindsight, but that is not how I remember you.”</p>
<p>At that Mairon glares at him. “I did not share all of my private feelings with you, <em>my lord</em>.”</p>
<p>“You did not have to,” Melkor says, and he smiles a secret little smile. “You give me so little credit, <em>husband</em>—if you never uttered another word, I would still know what you felt in your heart.”</p>
<p><em>Husband</em>—it is a simple word, not overly sentimental, nothing more than a descriptor; but something in Mairon seems to break open as he hears it. His arms tighten around Melkor’s shoulders as though he were drunk and needed the support, and he looks at him with a tenderness that burns more brightly than any star.</p>
<p>It takes him a couple of tries before he is able to form words again. “Tell me, then, if you think yourself an expert,” he begins in a voice that does not quite manage to be biting; “what did I feel?”</p>
<p>“An unwavering sense of duty and purpose,” Melkor answers with easy honesty. “You equated achievement with happiness and wanted to believe that you could be forever satisfied if only you could keep moving forwards, always improving and progressing and conquering.” At the shock on Mairon’s face, Melkor quickly adds, “It is no bad thing to strive for progress. But there was something else you wanted, was there not? There was something else that made you happy, though perhaps not often and not for as long as you would have liked.”</p>
<p>“And what exactly might that have been?” Mairon prompts, his tone carefully light, but the tremble in his voice betrays him.</p>
<p>“Me.” Melkor smiles, a little sadly; if these words had been spoken long ago, much grief might have been spared. “You wanted my love, and you had it, but not quite in the way you wanted it. It was not full or untainted or unwavering; it was not what you deserved, though know that I gave you what I could. All I could.”</p>
<p>He thinks that Mairon might cry, but he doesn’t. Instead, he cups Melkor’s face in his hands, carefully, like he is handling spun glass. Melkor’s heart feels so full that he thinks it might burst right out of his chest.</p>
<p>“I have you now,” Mairon says, speaking quietly, as though this gentle, starless night were sacred and he didn’t wish to intrude upon it; it’s not what Melkor was expecting, it’s not anger or grief or abandon, but he realises what Mairon is telling him, <em>let the past rest</em> and <em>let’s move forward</em>, and it strikes him like a blade of light through the heart. “I have you now,” Mairon says again, “and that’s enough for me.”</p>
<p>“I hope so,” Melkor tells him, leaning into his touch; he closes his eyes, savours the feeling of being held, wonders if there is a way to stay in this moment forever, bottle it up and keep it in his pocket. “All I want is for you to be happy again.”</p>
<p>Mairon’s fingers are trembling ever so slightly as though he is racked by the gentlest earthquake.</p>
<p>“I can be,” he says, voice thick but resolute. “I will be.”</p>
<p>Melkor can’t help himself: he closes the distance between them, presses his lips to Mairon’s own again. There is a part of him that wants to touch, desperately, to kiss Mairon’s lips and lay his hands on every inch of his bare skin, to say without words <em>I am here</em> and <em>I will not leave you again</em>.</p>
<p>When he draws back, he whispers against Mairon’s lips, “I love you.” And then, because it doesn’t quite feel like enough, he adds, “I’m so proud of you.”</p>
<p>Mairon shakes his head, pushing Melkor more firmly away with both palms planted against his chest. “If you do not shut your mouth right now, I will <em>make</em> you stop talking because I refuse to cry on my wedding night.”</p>
<p>“You’re adorable when you’re making threats.”</p>
<p>At that Mairon glowers, and in that moment he is so much like his old self that Melkor has to blink rapidly against the prickle of tears at the corners of his eyes.</p>
<p>“You’ve gone soft, <em>husband</em>,” Mairon accuses, lovingly; there is laughter in his eyes and a smile threatening to break over his lips.</p>
<p>“Have I now?” Melkor asks, and though he speaks like he’s issuing a challenge, he recognises the truth in Mairon’s words and he doesn’t mind, not truly. He has done terrible things, unspeakable things, and he cannot rightly say that he would not follow the same ruinous path if given the chance to do it all again. But that is behind him, behind both of them, now; he is here and he is happy, a happiness he never thought possible, a happiness that simply is as much as the trees or the stars simply are.</p>
<p>Mairon rolls his eyes at him. “You have,” he says, and then he softens, speaking more gently; “I’m glad of it.”</p>
<p>He starts laughing again, and Melkor stares at him, drinking in the shape of his mouth and the arch of his cheekbones and the crinkles around his eyes as he laughs and laughs and laughs like one drunk on joy.</p>
<p><em>Life is good</em>, Melkor catches himself thinking as the laughter fades and Mairon pulls him into another kiss, more fervent now, more purposeful; <em>life is everything it was ever meant to be</em>.</p>
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